


The Last One Out, Please Turn Off The Light

by Michael_McGruder



Category: Red Dwarf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2494877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michael_McGruder/pseuds/Michael_McGruder





	The Last One Out, Please Turn Off The Light

Dimension 455.635.4552

 He had never expected to be the last one. Maybe not the first, or even second, but he never thought he’d be last.

The Cat had been first. Lister had been devastated, as most cat owners were. But it wasn’t fair to call him a cat owner. They didn’t own The Cat. He was a person, and he was their friend. Even Rimmer, who never liked cats, and The Cat wasn’t an exception, had been sad to see him go. He hadn’t cried as Lister had, but he felt the loss.

It was okay. The Cat had died of old age, as most of them had. He supposed they’d all been pretty lucky.

Except Bexley. Everyone knew what cold fate the universe had in store for Lister’s second son. Rimmer and Lister had been nonchalant about it when they’d first learned of Bexley’s penultimate moment. Lister was ecstatic it wasn’t him, and Rimmer was annoyed it wasn’t. Years later, Lister and Kochanski agonized over whether or not to tell Bexley. In the end they decided it was his right to know. His right to know that he would save the ship, save all of them, at the cost of his own life. Bexley was a good kid.

No parent should have to bury their child, but the universe didn’t much care. Its suns kept shining brightly in blissful defiance of the grief of human men who personally witnessed their species being snuffed out. Kochanski had been spared having to bury Jim, who eventually sat beside his brother and mother in their urns. Lister couldn’t eject them, as was customary aboard starships.

Kryten wore down eventually. Being some three million years or so past his warranty, eventually all the software patches, the spare parts, the band aid welding couldn’t cope, and Lister’s tired hands couldn’t keep up. He and his last spare head had been packed away in their crate.

In his heart, he had always assumed Lister would be the one to outlive them all, and he supposed technically it was true. Sitting alone in a cold red tin can, in a lifeless universe, Rimmer wasn’t much in the mood for technicalities and semantics.

Lister had laid in Rimmer’s bunk, as he had for the last several years, too old and broken and stiff to hop in the top bunk anymore, and Rimmer sat beside him holding his hand. Lister looked up at him with his one good eye, and that stupid, unrelentingly cheery gerbil faced grin, and his last words to Rimmer, to anyone, had been, “see ya, smeg head.”

And Rimmer was alone.

The last self-aware entity in the universe.

And it would remain so until his choosing.

That was the hard part. He had always assumed that his life, such as it was, would conclude without him having much say in the matter one way or the other. As it had been the first time. With everything they’d been through, in a half assed way he’d always assumed it would be the laser fire from a Simulant pistol, or in the wreckage of a Starbug crash, a virus, an EMP… he’d sidestepped all of it.

Three million years and some change, and Rimmer’s light bee was still running with no signs of stopping. As reliable as Swiss Timing. It was just his smegging luck.

If Rimmer wanted oblivion, he would have to choose it.

The hologram sat in the cold, dark, oxygenless shell of Red Dwarf, having manually shut down all of the ships systems. It had taken over a year to accomplish, and now the only illumination on the ship was Rimmer’s projection, running on battery power.

He could wait the two days it took to drain his power, like a death row prisoner. Rimmer reflected on the life he’d had in death. There had been some rich, full moments, things he’d never had in life, but there had been a lot of empty ones as well. Eventually he decided not to tally up any more empty moments.

Rimmer looked at the stars outside the sleeping quarters port window, clutching the light bee in his cold hand, and the last light on Red Dwarf winked out.


End file.
